The Falcon App: A More Social Way To Navigate
It sounds unbelievable, but there’s a giant gap in the way we move through the world: There’s really no way to navigate beyond the established points of interest. How can I get to the most beautiful view on Mount Washington? Or from my first period class to my second one, all the way across campus?
The Falcon app, available for the iPhone, is bringing an entirely social aspect to local navigation – and it’s working. Just look at the map for UCLA, the home base for Falcon founders Ali Baghshomali, Matthew Austin, and Keith Gibson. Getting around campus just got a lot easier for everyone at UCLA thanks to the students who uploaded these building locations. Other schools have plenty of pins too, so make sure you check your local university.
The potentials are endless: Music festivals, the best parking spots in town – nothing’s off limits. And as more people being to use this app, a global navigation network for the in-between places of the world will appear.
That’s not to say that the only value of the app lies in uncharted territory. How many times have you begun your trip only to question, “Am I taking a right or left turn out of here?” Falcon has integrated a compass into their app so that users can orient themselves directionally before beginning their journey. As you can see below, it works with established locations in addition to user-generated uploads.
Falcon is gaining exposure by partnering with community events like pub crawls and tech crawls, offering users a window into the potential power of social navigation. They’ve gotten recognition at Burning Man, did their soft launch at Coachella, and have been recognized as an essential app for 21st century road warriors. By combining navigation and the social sharing of places and locations, they’re hoping to reinvent the way people move from place to place. One thing is for sure: thanks to Falcon, you’ll never forget where you parked your car ever again.
